'Raise hell' - the fastest bowler you might not have heard of
The story of Duncan Spencer, the "frighteningly fast" bowler who could have played for England or Australia.
Image source, Getty Images
By
Chief Cricket Reporter in Australia
Everyone who encountered Duncan Spencer has a tale to tell.
In the early 1990s, a golden age of fast bowling, Spencer might have been the quickest of all.
Born in Lancashire and raised in Perth, Spencer could have played for either England or Australia if his body had not let him down. The fastest bowler the Ashes rivals never had.
The great Viv Richards said Spencer was up there with the quickest he faced. Ricky Ponting said the same - Spencer and Ponting almost came to blows on the pitch.
Ryan Campbell, Durham coach and contemporary of Spencer at Western Australia, said he was "ridiculously and frighteningly fast". Tom Moody, the former Australia international and another West Australian, said Spencer would "terrorise" batters.
Just before the first Ashes Test, when England recorded their fastest collective day of pace bowling on record, BBC Sport met Spencer at his home in the south-west suburbs of Perth.
This is a story of injuries, comebacks and drugs. Most of all, it is a story about the visceral thrill of bowling fast.
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Like most kids born in the north of England, the young Duncan Spencer kicked a football around. The trouble was, his family moved to Perth when he was five and soccer (his word) had not taken hold in Australia in the early 1980s.
Spencer was a batter in junior cricket. He was not usually allowed to bowl because he "bowled the thing everywhere". It was only in one end-of-season game, when the regular bowlers were missing, that the 14-year-old Spencer got his chance.
"It all just clicked," he says. Spencer's pace had been discovered, wickets tumbled and he was on his way through the Western Australian system.
"I had the 'joy' of playing all of my junior career against Duncan," says Campbell. "You saw this kid, the run-up, it just looked like it was going to be fast - and he always was. He was faster than everyone else.
"There are only four people in my lifetime I have said are ridiculously fast. That is Shoaib Akhtar, Brett Lee, Shaun Tait and Duncan Spencer."
Spencer is not a tall man. Even now, at the age of 53, he has hulking shoulders, but a height of 5ft 8in is not ideal for a fast bowler. He had his first back operation aged 17.
"I draw a comparison with Mark Wood," says Moody. "It's like having a V8 engine in a Mini Minor."
As Spencer was progressing, Daryl Foster was head coach of Western Australia and Kent. When Foster learned of Spencer's British passport, he signed him to a two-year deal at Canterbury.
Spencer was raw. Just before he went to the UK for the 1993 summer, he bowled 42 no-balls playing for Western Australia against an England A team including Jack Russell, Graham Thorpe, Dominic Cork and Andy Caddick - Spencer got Thorpe out.
On his first return to England since leaving as a child, the 21-year-old Spencer was shocked by the cold and by the county grind.
"I'd say to the other guys 'Are you sore?'" says Spencer. "They'd say 'No, I'm alright'. I could hardly walk."
Spencer played one game in the County Championship that summer. He did, however, produce a spell of bowling that is mentioned by anyone who hears his name.
In September, Kent and Glamorgan met in the final match of the Sunday League season. They were the top two and the title was on the line. It was also the last List A match in the career of West Indies legend Richards, aged 41.
The match was televised live by the BBC - Jonathan Agnew and Vic Marks were on commentary. The footage is easily found online.
As Kent attempted to defend a modest total of 200, Spencer was the fifth bowler used. Whippy action, retro sky-blue Kent kit - Spencer's first ball whistled past the ear of Adrian Dale.
Spencer mainly bowled two lengths: very full and very short. There were gasps from the crowd as the ball either thudded into a Glamorgan batter or the gloves of Kent keeper Steve Marsh.
After Spencer pinned Matthew Maynard - an England international - leg before wicket, Richards swaggered to the crease to a standing ovation. Naturally, the Master Blaster did not wear a helmet.
"He's used to many a young pup tearing in and trying to let him have it," was Agnew's description of Richards defending his first ball on the back foot. Next ball, Spencer rattled him in the chest.
"He spat his chewing gum out to cover," says Spencer. "He didn't show any pain but was clearly hurt after the one in the ribs."
Richards took another one on the top hand. When he tried a swipe, the ball looped up to be caught on the leg side, only for the umpire to signal no-ball. Richards eventually passed Spencer at the non-striker's end, giving him a high five and a pat on the head.
Glamorgan won the match and the title. Richards ended 46 not out. Spencer got a signed bat he still owns today.
"I walked into the changing rooms and he said 'Man, that was serious pace, boy'," says Spencer. "He said 'That's a slow wicket and it was seriously quick'."
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Sir Viv Richards (left) celebrates winning the Sunday League title
Two months later, Spencer was back playing for Western Australia duelling with another legend - albeit future Australia captain Ponting was still finding his way in the game.
Playing for Tasmania in a Sheffield Shield game in Hobart, Ponting was a few days shy of his 20th birthday and nearing a century.
"This day against Ricky, it was on," says Spencer.
"Geoff Marsh, the captain, came over to me and said 'mate, I don't care what you do, just raise hell'.
"We were into each other. I gave him four bouncers in a row and I think it should only have been one per batter, per over.
"He had a whinge to the umpire. I turned around to mid-off and said 'don't walk in. I've got to pitch this one up and he'll smash it'.
"He pushed it towards cover and I was in my follow-through. I kept going and grabbed the ball. He made out he was going to run, so I turned and threw it. As he turned, it went past his head and just missed the stumps.
"He turned around and said 'you do that again I'll wrap this bat around your neck'.
"I said 'don't let fear hold you back'.
"Then we've gone into each other. I was about to crack him. I'd lost it by then. We got into it on the pitch until the players and umpires pulled us apart."
As fate would have it, Spencer and Ponting would end up in the same bar that evening, and they settled their difference over a beer.
For Spencer, who admits to having a fiery temperament on the field, it was not just opponents on the wrong end of his aggression.
"Justin Langer was trying to fire me up in the changing rooms, tapping me in the face," says Spencer.
"I didn't need firing up. I was always pretty calm until I got past the white line. Justin thought he'd switch me on before we went out.
"I just went 'smack', leave me alone, a little left hook in the chest. I could have hit him with a right and got him. He didn't go down and he said 'if that was anyone else it would have put a hole through them'."
Spencer was flying. When he returned to Kent for the 1994 season, there was talk of an international call-up. Coach Foster told him not to do interviews, so as not to declare an allegiance to England or Australia.
Then, in a flash, Spencer's career came to a halt. He broke down in a one-day game against Middlesex in June.
"I collapsed on the ground bowling to Mark Ramprakash," says Spencer. "I could hardly walk."
Spencer returned to Australia, slowly coming to terms with the idea his days as a professional cricketer might be done. Now with a young family, everyday tasks like mowing the lawn were accompanied by excruciating pain.
In order to live a normal life, Spencer took prescription steroids. The pain receded and the desire to play cricket returned. He went back to the Perth club circuit.
"Tom Moody was the Western Australia captain and found out I was playing again," says Spencer.
"He said 'you're going to play a one-day game on 2 January'. I laughed, didn't think much of it.
"It came around and I was picked. I ended up playing and I was in for the one-day season. I was just happy to be back playing."
Spencer was back playing professional cricket, almost seven years after his last appearance, and he remained with Western Australia on their run to the 2000-01 domestic one-day cup final.
In the final, his WA side included Mike Hussey and Simon Katich but they were beaten by a New South Wales team of Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin and Michael Bevan.
After the match, Spencer went through a drug test. With the steroids still in his system, he was banned for 18 months, the first cricketer in Australia to be punished under anti-doping laws. He was front-page news.
"It was six months after taking the drugs before I even attempted a bowl," he says. "By the time I played it was a year later. Apparently it hangs around in your body for much longer. If I knew that, I wouldn't have played.
"I was talking with Kent and Hampshire, but then I got banned. I got absolutely hammered as a punishment, but I was expecting worse."
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Spencer bowling for Western Australia in 2001
Spencer was out of the game once more, but was still not done.
Five years later, through his work as a fitness coach, Spencer found himself bowling to a young Ravi Bopara in the nets at Rockingham-Mandurah Cricket Club.
"Ravi said 'why are you not still playing?'" says Spencer. "Knowing how good Ravi was - and is - if he thought I could do it, maybe I should play."
After the drugs ban, Spencer felt his time playing for Western Australia was done, so he asked former Zimbabwe and Sussex batter Murray Goodwin if any counties were looking for a bowler.
Remarkably, at the age of 34, Spencer found himself back in county cricket on trial at Sussex in the summer of 2006.
"I thought I was still pretty passionate about the game, but I realised I probably wasn't," says Spencer.
"I was sharp, but not as quick as I was as a young fella. I was fit enough to do it, but my work ethic had gone. I probably went over for the wrong reasons."
Spencer played two first-class matches for Sussex, against Warwickshire and the touring Sri Lanka team. His last wicket in professional cricket was Kumar Sangakkara.
All in all, he took 36 wickets in 16 first-class matches and 23 scalps in 20 List A games.
Nearly 20 years on, Spencer is settled in Perth. He works in the mines in the northern part of Western Australia.
Moody says there is "no question" Spencer could have played international cricket. Spencer says he would have happily played for England or Australia, but the accent is 100% Aussie.
Spencer has no idea how fast he bowled. He thinks he was told he was clocked at 158kph - just over 98mph - but that was "off a short run".
"I was in the wrong era," he says, considering the way modern fast bowlers are managed, or how he could have made a fortune as a T20 gun-for-hire.
"It is one of the great shames that we didn't see enough of Duncan Spencer," says Campbell. "When he got it right - oh my goodness."
Spencer did not collect the wickets, the international caps or the rewards he might have, but he experienced what most can only dream of.
"When I didn't have rhythm, I was as bad as anyone," he says.
"When it all clicked, it was a great feeling. It's effortless. When you get the rhythm it feels like it's coming out medium pace.
"Bowling fast is awesome."
The Ashes
Second Test - The Gabba, Brisbane
4-8 December
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